We're all for upstart automakers. Anybody who has what he or she feels is a better idea and can fund the design and production of an automobile, who can leap the myriad regulatory hurdles of the alphabet soup of government agencies and deliver a product to people who'd like to buy it is a special breed of person.

Henrik Fisker is just such a cat. Unfortunately, his Karma keeps hitting wall after wall. This wasn't such a big deal for gents such as Ferruccio Lamborghini or Enzo Ferrari, though both eventually sold off their automobile companies. If your Miura caught fire? Well, it was a high-strung, finicky beast. Lambo purchasers of the day understood such foibles as part of the cost of ownership.

Nowadays, with new-vehicle conflagrations exceeding rare events and reliability expected among customers of even the most premium, bleeding-edge brands, it seems as if Fisker's reputation might be so badly soiled that the company might fatally falter before it ever truly gets off the ground.

The latest cut is another recall, this time to relocate hose clamps on 19 additional vehicles—Karmas manufactured between Sept. 22, 2011, and Jan. 20, 2012. The affected hose clamps reside within the battery itself; leaking coolant could create a short that might start a fire. Another fire, of course, is the last thing that Fisker needs.

General Motors is big enough to weather the Volt's teething problems. Tesla, on the other hand, barely survived difficulty after difficulty getting the Lotus-based Roadster to market. The Model S—its true proof-in-the-pudding vehicle—is just coming to market now, nigh on six years since the Roadster's debut. Can Henrik Fisker's company plow through on a similar force of will? We hope so.

UPDATE:

Fisker corporate communications director Russ Datz shed some light on the situation, noting that a clerical error on Fisker's part resulted in the issuance of what's a continuation of the original recall. Because of the break in the calendar year (the original recall went out at the end of December), the 19 cars completed prior to the Jan. 20 cutoff weren't included in the original recall.

Because of the low-volume production pace at Fisker—notes Datz, "GM scraps more cars than we build"—the 19 automobiles affected were largely completed when the original recall notice went out.

The company also sent over the following statement:

"The minor adjustment to the VIN range is an administrative filing with NHTSA, the federal transport safety agency, to update information relating to an existing voluntary recall of 239 Fisker Karma vehicles from December 2011. This action was to realign hose clamps on the battery pack, and will now include a further 19 cars."

"The owners of the additional 19 cars will be contacted for this minor technical adjustment, in accordance with normal industry standards for all recalls. No safety incident has been reported with any of the cars involved."